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After reading Wim Hof and James Nestor a couple years ago during the pandemic, I used their techniques in full while battling long Covid. I had a blood pressur

After reading Wim Hof and James Nestor a couple years ago during the pandemic, I used their techniques in full while battling long Covid. I had a blood pressure monitor and pulse oximeter on my bedside table that I would experiment with doing these various techniques and seeing my heart rate go down, my blood pressure go down, my anxiety would disappear, lung/chest inflammation would settle, and even oxygen levels increase up to 5%. I did this primarily because Covid reduced my average running mile time by around 20%. I was hopeful that I could make a full recovery which I did and then some. This new tool I believe saved my life, and I’m excited to use it for the rest of it.

ceasesurthinko 5y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybOi4hjZFQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybOi4hjZFQ It's amazing.
inter_netuser 5y ago
>their techniques can you link to the exact regimen? tia
- thenerdhead 5y ago
  https://www.wimhofmethod.com/breathing-exercises https://www.wimhofmethod.com/breathing-exercises (YouTube video is best) Nestor stuff is short. Breathe through nose, tape your mouth, right nostril inhale/left exhale.
  - meristohm 5y ago
    By "tape your mouth", James Nestor suggests taping the mouth shut while sleeping, to condition the nose (extra benefit of not drying out the gums--my dentist approves). It took months of applying a thin strip of tape vertically across my lips (surgical tape, easy to pull off if needed, but it never came to that), and now I habitually breathe through my nose at night instead of my mouth, and can nose-breathe all day, too, where before I'd need some mouth-breaths in a panic. The switching-nostils breathing is just one way to practice (there's a list at the back of the book). If anything, best practice for oxygenation and venting C02 seems to be inhaling over 5-6 seconds and exhaling for the same or slightly longer. The more-recent book Breath Taking by Michael Stephen backs this up.
foobarbecue 5y ago
When I worked on Mt Erebus we used to play pulseox bingo: see who could match their O2 saturation to their pulse at the lowest or highest value.
tmountain 5y ago
Where can you buy one? Which one did you buy? Does it require a prescription?
- shireboy 5y ago
  Amazon has both. I have a OMRON Bluetooth blood pressure cuff. Don’t have a finger pulse oximeter, but my Apple Watch has one.
sizzle 5y ago
Do you have a cheat sheet or video we can watch to get the gist? Thanks!
throwaway693 5y ago
The only beef i have with Wim Hof is he says one's attitude matter in following his method. He says a person should be open minded and accept without ego, something along those lines. The problem is its not quantifiable and kind of cop-out, so I don't take it too seriously.
chubot 5y ago
I got a pulse oximeter a couple years ago too, and it was eye opening (before COVID, and I didn't get COVID). The realtime feedback is useful and actionable. Breathing more slowly, exhaling more than inhaling (counterintuitive), pausing, and breathing through the nose definitely make a difference for me. But everyone is a little different so you have to experiment. Breathing is very multidimensional and hard to explain. The Nestor book is a good intro, and I've mentioned it on HN a few times before. I'm a big believer now. It is almost laughably simple, and I have to cite the fact the fact that no company profits if you breathe better, sleep better, etc. It's a trite saying but true ...
- michaelcampbell 5y ago
  Was it Nestor that buys into the "acid diet" idea that has been debunked?
- post_break 5y ago
  You should get a sleep study as well. It's amazing how little oxygen you can get when you sleep. Cpap sucks to wear at night, but it forces you to take the same breathing techniques. Just avoid philips products and go resmed.
  - thenerdhead 5y ago
    This is why I enjoyed the "tape over mouth" tip by nestor. I was a mouth breather and would not feel very rested because of it. When breathing through nose only, I felt so refreshed as if I got more oxygen.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  If your oxygen level is varying significantly while at rest, you are very out of shape aerobically, and you should be getting more exercise, not obsessing about your breathing patterns.
  - thenerdhead 5y ago
    Is this true? I run ~15 miles a week, play pickup basketball 2x a week, and lift weights 3x a week. My oxygen levels can vary 2-5% depending on circadian rhythm at rest. When doing these breathing exercises, I can stabilize it at higher levels. That's at least my experience with it.
codenlearn 5y ago
wim-hof is a life saver. I used during my covid battle as well. I had this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybOi4hjZFQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybOi4hjZFQ on loop when I was suffering with covid
- bitL 5y ago
  Wim-Hof almost killed me (that exact video). Please don't try it until you are in a state you can comfortably sustain 1+ minute lack of oxygen.
- mosiuerbarso 5y ago
  Thanks for this. My pensioner mother came back from the doctors yesterday with a chest infection, on top of this she has mild bronchitis. I've just sent her this exercises as I'm hoping it might improve her lung health. Although i did send her this one which is a bit easier: https://youtu.be/0BNejY1e9ik https://youtu.be/0BNejY1e9ik But thanks for posting it, I never knew about this method. Just tried it myself and it rocks.
  - bitcharmer 5y ago
    Wow, I can't thank you enough for posting this. I've been struggling with hypertension and anxiety for a very long time. I just tried the beginner exercise and couldn't believe the effect. Not only could I hold my breath for longer then I was ever able to on my first try but also I felt relaxed and happy at the end of the exercise. Thank you!!!
friedman23 5y ago
Wim Hof is really good, the calmness you feel after the breathing is unmatched. There all these small techniques for managing emotions that are just not well known. If you need to calm down in the moment for example, doing a simple inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 2, exhale for 8 can make your stress melt away. Or in really stressful situations, try grabbing an icepack and holding it for a minute.
mjfl 5y ago
do you mean it increased your running time?
- thenerdhead 5y ago
  Yes sorry. I used the wrong word. It had a negative effect on my running time up to 20%. In my case it added two minutes to my 10 minute mile average. It took me awhile to get back to normal.
himyogi 5y ago
- jvvw 5y ago
  I practice yoga and pranayama but I think for many people decoupling the breathing exercises from the spiritual side encourages them to try things they would have otherwise have shunned. I also think many of the secular breathwork practitioners aren't being deceptive - many of them are very open about their influences - Wim Hof had certainly talked about his time in India etc. What is interesting for me is understanding more of the science so we can figure out which parts of these practices matter for what and whether some parts are extraneous.
- throwaway_1928 5y ago
  This has happened with Pranayama before, when it was appropriated and rebranded as 'cardiac coherence breathing' [1] and 'diaphragmatic breathing' [2]. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/30/health/india-pranayama-yoga-cardiac-breathing-scli-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/30/health/india-pranayama-yoga-c... [2] https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/learning-diaphragmatic-breathing https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/learning-diaphragm...
  - amelius 5y ago
    Except the ancient folks forgot to do controlled trials.
  - rajup 5y ago
    Hah 'cardiac coherence breathing'! Nothing like using a few fancy sounding words for an age old technique to get the cash registers a'ringing...
- brigandish 5y ago
  It doesn't matter one iota if someone claims it as their own, what matters is the benefit it brings. Do you think Patanjali (or whomever) would be protective of their techniques and trademark it, patent it, and extract wealth for it? If they don't care then neither should anyone else, and perhaps this will help the techniques spread further, which I'm sure Patanjali et al again, would not be against.
tarsinge 5y ago
The article is about IMST, which is strictly about muscle strengthening. This is maybe a side effect of the Wim Hoff Method, but the WHM also has other purposes because the main mechanism is hyper ventilation and breath holding. Here is good medical explanation of what happens when practicing the WMH (by a medical professional): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6EPuUdIC1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6EPuUdIC1E (summary at 33:46).
leobg 5y ago
You say “their technique” and “this new tool”. For someone who hasn’t read Hof and Nestor, could you point to any resources explaining the specific techniques you are referring to? If I go down the Google/YT rabbit hole, I fear I’ll be confronted with hundreds of such techniques and just get utterly confused. Thank you.
- eckmLJE 5y ago
  You could start by reading about Wim Hof (a person) and his "Wim Hof Method": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof
- wgj 5y ago
  I was curious too. Taken from [0], not my knowledge or opinions. (I'm new to all of this.) - James Nestor - Breath: "I love this book and it‘s more a kind of overview about different breathing systems and techniques. He writes about Wim Hof and also about Oxygen Advantage. It‘s a good starting point into the topic of breathing. Highly recommended." "Breathe is like a pop sci intro to breathing. It covers a lot and not very deeply, but it is engaging, makes a good case, and have a few actionable things that have a larger payoff (mouth tape)." - Patrick McKeown - Oxygen Advantage: "The base of this book is the Buteyko method and Patrick follows a very scientific approach. He can explain all hows and whys without beeing to complicated. Also highly recommended. You will find breath holds and reduced breathing in different techniques. Focus is on sports and conditioning. Highly recommended." "O2 Advantage goes a lot deeper and helps you systematically evaluate and improve your co2 tolerance and thereby improve your body's ability to use oxygen. If I only could recommend one of these three, it would be this one with Breathe as a close second (simply because it is so accessible). It gives clear guidelines, tests, and actionable steps to improve your breathing. It is a very useful book." - Wim Hof - The Wim Hof Method: "It’s basically about breathing, cold exposure and the mind. The breathing work is about overbreathing (hyperventilation) followed by a breathhold. There are times that I love it, but science is mostly against it. I guess nobody knows why this works. Pavel is against breath holds after hyperventilation by the way (SECOND WIND). But there are lots of people having success using the WHM. I can also recommend the newest book." "Wim Hof. It mainly focuses on a intense breathing technique and cold exposure. I know a lot of people that swear by them. I've never had any benefits from them that I could tell. After talking to some people that were really into this, they pointed out that I'm way more stressed all the time than they are. Adding more stress when you are already at max doesn't exactly help and probably hurts (more info here). This is my least favorite of the three as it has a very narrow benefit and that benefit isn't applicable to a lot of people. since it is basically a book on how to increase stress levels through breathing and cold." [0] https://www.strongfirst.com/community/threads/james-nestor%E2%80%99s-breath-vs-oxygen-advantage-vs-wim-hof.19870/ https://www.strongfirst.com/community/threads/james-nestor%E...
VMtest 5y ago
I also watched Wim Hof on youtube during the pandemic, he even made a video regarding Covid at that time Well, I never really got Covid myself, I feel good knowing your recovery experience with that method Now, I should start using Wim Hof or similar method already

ceasesurthinko 5y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybOi4hjZFQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybOi4hjZFQ It's amazing.

inter_netuser 5y ago

>their techniques can you link to the exact regimen? tia

thenerdhead 5y ago
https://www.wimhofmethod.com/breathing-exercises https://www.wimhofmethod.com/breathing-exercises (YouTube video is best) Nestor stuff is short. Breathe through nose, tape your mouth, right nostril inhale/left exhale.
- meristohm 5y ago
  By "tape your mouth", James Nestor suggests taping the mouth shut while sleeping, to condition the nose (extra benefit of not drying out the gums--my dentist approves). It took months of applying a thin strip of tape vertically across my lips (surgical tape, easy to pull off if needed, but it never came to that), and now I habitually breathe through my nose at night instead of my mouth, and can nose-breathe all day, too, where before I'd need some mouth-breaths in a panic. The switching-nostils breathing is just one way to practice (there's a list at the back of the book). If anything, best practice for oxygenation and venting C02 seems to be inhaling over 5-6 seconds and exhaling for the same or slightly longer. The more-recent book Breath Taking by Michael Stephen backs this up.

foobarbecue 5y ago

When I worked on Mt Erebus we used to play pulseox bingo: see who could match their O2 saturation to their pulse at the lowest or highest value.

tmountain 5y ago

Where can you buy one? Which one did you buy? Does it require a prescription?

shireboy 5y ago
Amazon has both. I have a OMRON Bluetooth blood pressure cuff. Don’t have a finger pulse oximeter, but my Apple Watch has one.

sizzle 5y ago

Do you have a cheat sheet or video we can watch to get the gist? Thanks!

throwaway693 5y ago

The only beef i have with Wim Hof is he says one's attitude matter in following his method. He says a person should be open minded and accept without ego, something along those lines. The problem is its not quantifiable and kind of cop-out, so I don't take it too seriously.

chubot 5y ago

I got a pulse oximeter a couple years ago too, and it was eye opening (before COVID, and I didn't get COVID). The realtime feedback is useful and actionable. Breathing more slowly, exhaling more than inhaling (counterintuitive), pausing, and breathing through the nose definitely make a difference for me. But everyone is a little different so you have to experiment. Breathing is very multidimensional and hard to explain. The Nestor book is a good intro, and I've mentioned it on HN a few times before. I'm a big believer now. It is almost laughably simple, and I have to cite the fact the fact that no company profits if you breathe better, sleep better, etc. It's a trite saying but true ...

michaelcampbell 5y ago
Was it Nestor that buys into the "acid diet" idea that has been debunked?
post_break 5y ago
You should get a sleep study as well. It's amazing how little oxygen you can get when you sleep. Cpap sucks to wear at night, but it forces you to take the same breathing techniques. Just avoid philips products and go resmed.
- thenerdhead 5y ago
  This is why I enjoyed the "tape over mouth" tip by nestor. I was a mouth breather and would not feel very rested because of it. When breathing through nose only, I felt so refreshed as if I got more oxygen.
KennyBlanken 5y ago
If your oxygen level is varying significantly while at rest, you are very out of shape aerobically, and you should be getting more exercise, not obsessing about your breathing patterns.
- thenerdhead 5y ago
  Is this true? I run ~15 miles a week, play pickup basketball 2x a week, and lift weights 3x a week. My oxygen levels can vary 2-5% depending on circadian rhythm at rest. When doing these breathing exercises, I can stabilize it at higher levels. That's at least my experience with it.

codenlearn 5y ago

wim-hof is a life saver. I used during my covid battle as well. I had this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybOi4hjZFQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybOi4hjZFQ on loop when I was suffering with covid

bitL 5y ago
Wim-Hof almost killed me (that exact video). Please don't try it until you are in a state you can comfortably sustain 1+ minute lack of oxygen.
mosiuerbarso 5y ago
Thanks for this. My pensioner mother came back from the doctors yesterday with a chest infection, on top of this she has mild bronchitis. I've just sent her this exercises as I'm hoping it might improve her lung health. Although i did send her this one which is a bit easier: https://youtu.be/0BNejY1e9ik https://youtu.be/0BNejY1e9ik But thanks for posting it, I never knew about this method. Just tried it myself and it rocks.
- bitcharmer 5y ago
  Wow, I can't thank you enough for posting this. I've been struggling with hypertension and anxiety for a very long time. I just tried the beginner exercise and couldn't believe the effect. Not only could I hold my breath for longer then I was ever able to on my first try but also I felt relaxed and happy at the end of the exercise. Thank you!!!

friedman23 5y ago

Wim Hof is really good, the calmness you feel after the breathing is unmatched. There all these small techniques for managing emotions that are just not well known. If you need to calm down in the moment for example, doing a simple inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 2, exhale for 8 can make your stress melt away. Or in really stressful situations, try grabbing an icepack and holding it for a minute.

mjfl 5y ago

do you mean it increased your running time?

thenerdhead 5y ago
Yes sorry. I used the wrong word. It had a negative effect on my running time up to 20%. In my case it added two minutes to my 10 minute mile average. It took me awhile to get back to normal.

himyogi 5y ago

jvvw 5y ago
I practice yoga and pranayama but I think for many people decoupling the breathing exercises from the spiritual side encourages them to try things they would have otherwise have shunned. I also think many of the secular breathwork practitioners aren't being deceptive - many of them are very open about their influences - Wim Hof had certainly talked about his time in India etc. What is interesting for me is understanding more of the science so we can figure out which parts of these practices matter for what and whether some parts are extraneous.
throwaway_1928 5y ago
This has happened with Pranayama before, when it was appropriated and rebranded as 'cardiac coherence breathing' [1] and 'diaphragmatic breathing' [2]. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/30/health/india-pranayama-yoga-cardiac-breathing-scli-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/30/health/india-pranayama-yoga-c... [2] https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/learning-diaphragmatic-breathing https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/learning-diaphragm...
- amelius 5y ago
  Except the ancient folks forgot to do controlled trials.
- rajup 5y ago
  Hah 'cardiac coherence breathing'! Nothing like using a few fancy sounding words for an age old technique to get the cash registers a'ringing...
brigandish 5y ago
It doesn't matter one iota if someone claims it as their own, what matters is the benefit it brings. Do you think Patanjali (or whomever) would be protective of their techniques and trademark it, patent it, and extract wealth for it? If they don't care then neither should anyone else, and perhaps this will help the techniques spread further, which I'm sure Patanjali et al again, would not be against.

tarsinge 5y ago

The article is about IMST, which is strictly about muscle strengthening. This is maybe a side effect of the Wim Hoff Method, but the WHM also has other purposes because the main mechanism is hyper ventilation and breath holding. Here is good medical explanation of what happens when practicing the WMH (by a medical professional): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6EPuUdIC1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6EPuUdIC1E (summary at 33:46).

leobg 5y ago

You say “their technique” and “this new tool”. For someone who hasn’t read Hof and Nestor, could you point to any resources explaining the specific techniques you are referring to? If I go down the Google/YT rabbit hole, I fear I’ll be confronted with hundreds of such techniques and just get utterly confused. Thank you.

eckmLJE 5y ago
You could start by reading about Wim Hof (a person) and his "Wim Hof Method": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof
wgj 5y ago
I was curious too. Taken from [0], not my knowledge or opinions. (I'm new to all of this.) - James Nestor - Breath: "I love this book and it‘s more a kind of overview about different breathing systems and techniques. He writes about Wim Hof and also about Oxygen Advantage. It‘s a good starting point into the topic of breathing. Highly recommended." "Breathe is like a pop sci intro to breathing. It covers a lot and not very deeply, but it is engaging, makes a good case, and have a few actionable things that have a larger payoff (mouth tape)." - Patrick McKeown - Oxygen Advantage: "The base of this book is the Buteyko method and Patrick follows a very scientific approach. He can explain all hows and whys without beeing to complicated. Also highly recommended. You will find breath holds and reduced breathing in different techniques. Focus is on sports and conditioning. Highly recommended." "O2 Advantage goes a lot deeper and helps you systematically evaluate and improve your co2 tolerance and thereby improve your body's ability to use oxygen. If I only could recommend one of these three, it would be this one with Breathe as a close second (simply because it is so accessible). It gives clear guidelines, tests, and actionable steps to improve your breathing. It is a very useful book." - Wim Hof - The Wim Hof Method: "It’s basically about breathing, cold exposure and the mind. The breathing work is about overbreathing (hyperventilation) followed by a breathhold. There are times that I love it, but science is mostly against it. I guess nobody knows why this works. Pavel is against breath holds after hyperventilation by the way (SECOND WIND). But there are lots of people having success using the WHM. I can also recommend the newest book." "Wim Hof. It mainly focuses on a intense breathing technique and cold exposure. I know a lot of people that swear by them. I've never had any benefits from them that I could tell. After talking to some people that were really into this, they pointed out that I'm way more stressed all the time than they are. Adding more stress when you are already at max doesn't exactly help and probably hurts (more info here). This is my least favorite of the three as it has a very narrow benefit and that benefit isn't applicable to a lot of people. since it is basically a book on how to increase stress levels through breathing and cold." [0] https://www.strongfirst.com/community/threads/james-nestor%E2%80%99s-breath-vs-oxygen-advantage-vs-wim-hof.19870/ https://www.strongfirst.com/community/threads/james-nestor%E...

VMtest 5y ago

I also watched Wim Hof on youtube during the pandemic, he even made a video regarding Covid at that time Well, I never really got Covid myself, I feel good knowing your recovery experience with that method Now, I should start using Wim Hof or similar method already